Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions – Better Governance for the Single Market

The financial crisis has shown that the EU needs to act to improve its economic model and restore competitiveness. This requires a mix of sound public finances, deep structural reforms and targeted investment. Europe 2020 is the EU's strategy to boost sustainable growth and the creation of jobs and the Single Market has a key role to play in this.

The Single Market is a key driver for economic growth. However, to reap the benefits it brings, its rules must be properly implemented and enforced. Whilst the Commission has been working in partnership with Member States to this end, the situation today demonstrates that there is much room for improvement. The average transposition deficit has risen again from 0.7 in 2009 to 1.2% in February 2012, and Member States are taking an ever longer time (8 months on average) to transpose Directives after the transposition deadline has lapsed.

The duration of infringement procedures has further increased to 25.5 months on average. And even where rules are correctly transposed, they often do not work well in practice. Businesses and citizens often do not understand their rights and encounter many difficulties when trying to exercise them.

Making what we have, work better in practice is a "quick win" for growth and jobs. For instance, a better implementation of the Services Directive could deliver up to an estimated additional 1.8% of EU GDP, as shown in a Communication adopted on 8 June 2012 by the Commission [COM (2012) 0261]. And it has been calculated that a more efficient transposition of EU legislation could reduce administrative burdens by one third, leading to an overall cost saving of nearly 40 billion euro.

The March 2012 European Council recognised the need to strengthen the governance of the Single Market and to improve its implementation and enforcement. Similar calls have been made by the European Parliament. In response, this Communication calls for a renewed commitment to make the Single Market effectively deliver for growth. In particular, it proposes:

- a particularly ambitious course of action to make swift progress in key areas with the greatest growth potential (Part I);

- concrete measures to further improve the Single Market 'governance cycle', i.e. the way Single Market rules are designed, implemented, applied and enforced (Part II).

EUR-Lex: COM(2012)259: Follow the progress of this document through the decision-making procedure http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/HIS/?uri=COM:2012:259:FIN

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